swivelCard reinvents the ‘old’ business card

The humble business card gets a major facelift. In its effort to put together technology and tradition, Spokane based company has introduced the swivelCard—a premium USB-enabled paper business card that holds a sizeable amount of data and information about its owner.

Of course, digital technology hasn’t completely killed off business cards. In fact, employees, entrepreneurs, and several big shot corporate executives still prefer handing out their cards to their clients and contemporaries.

But a traditional business card can only carry a limited amount of information and its physical aspect makes it prone to misplacement and mishandling. QR code printing and app scanning, nonetheless, supplement and expand the features of a business card.

The swivelCard is a more promising alternative. Developed, designed, and manufactured by intelliPaper, LLC, the product sports a USB stick interface for inserting into a USB port and directing the user or recipient toward a particular website. It is essentially a paper USB business card.

Since 2009, intelliPaper has been in business of manufacturing so-called intelligent papers, including a disposable-paper USB flash drives and smart prints for direct mails, commercial printing, and product packaging.

“We patented a system for turning regular paper into a USB drive. Now we’ve included this technology in a business card,” said the company.

Photo credit: intelliPaper, LLC

Apart from a USB stick interface, each swivelCard has a unique ID, thus allowing customization of the digital experience for each individual recipient as well as for groups. This means controlling the URL destination of each or any card at any time, even after handing out to the recipients. Thus, the distributed cards are remotely customizable, always current, and almost permanent.

The company enumerated: “Create a microsite showcasing your videos, downloadable files, forms, sales literature, and call to action, all nicely packaged in a branded experience. Invite a new investor to a high-level online meeting. Reward faithful customers with access to an exclusive online pre-sale event. Showcase your newest item to your high-level clients.”

What’s more is that the swivelCard also allows its owner to track usage, thereby allowing him or her to know where each distributed cards has ended up and how many people are accessing the contained data and information. The product is thereby a paper USB card with analytics.

Data and information can also be accessed in other ways because each swivelCard includes an NFC and a printed QR code.